May 8-14, 2008
editorial@boulderweekly.com


Roman candle would like to be your friend
Welcome, CU Police, to the age of Internet technology, where a breadth of global information, profiles and studies are at your fingertips. We’re talking, of course, about YouTube.

CU Police have discovered that students enjoy broadcasting themselves, even when it’s solely for the purpose of illegal activities. Well, maybe CU Police didn’t discover that, but they’ve just made their first citation based on an incriminating video posted on the website.

On March 31, CU freshman Joseph Ramos decided to celebrate Independence Day a few months early and lit a Roman candle on the lawn in front of Sewall Hall. A few fellow dorm kids freaked out and called the cops (wasn’t Sewall supposed to be the party dorm?), but the Roman candle culprit was nowhere to be found. Baffled by a lack of leads, CU Police retreated back to the station.
Joseph Ramos, the smart kid that he is, decided to post up a video of himself lighting off the wannabe firecracker. After a couple of narcs-in-training saw it, the police were informed and Ramos was cited.

The ACLU has warned against using Internet videos to cite or arrest individuals. It’s too easy for an imposter to falsely incriminate someone, they say, and therefore does not serve as valid evidence. And we couldn’t agree more. Come on, guys. YouTube? Why not start with a more friendly website, one with more personality and networking? On MySpace, for example, CU Police could use Tom as their main informant, and for every illegal activity could be issued a “Sorry! An unexpected error has occurred!” Or maybe they could have just poked Ramos on Facebook a few times. After all, it was just a Roman candle. That doesn’t even merit a bulletin, let alone a citation.

Charlie Brown meets E.T.
Jeff Peckman is 54, single, lives with his parents, and he wants Denver to develop a plan to deal with the existence of aliens.

Peckman is currently collecting signatures (he needs 4,000) to put an initiative on the November ballot that would lay the groundwork to develop an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission. According to Peckman, the commission would “create a responsible, common-sense strategy for dealing with issues related to the presence of extraterrestrial beings on Earth.”

This is not Peckman’s first dip in the stagnant waters of local politics. In the past, he also sponsored a ballot initiative called Safety Through Peace that would have required Denver to implement “stress-reductive techniques” throughout the city. The initiative didn’t pass, but government officials’ jaws dropped when it received a surprisingly high number (32 percent) of votes.

According to the Rocky Mountain News — which apparently has nothing better to do than poke fun at impassioned citizens with unusual ballot proposals — Denver Councilman Charlie Brown had this to say about Peckman’s initiative: “loony-toony.” Yes, that is correct — a dude named Charlie Brown is insulting a dude who believes in aliens with third-grade epithets.

There’s a good chance that Peckman is crazier than a shithouse rat, but in a country where half the citizens won’t even turn up at the polls to vote, do we really need to make fun of a man who is attempting to actively participate in the democratic process? Mr. Brown, if there is an alien ship out there, we hope you’re the first in line to get probed. And then Peppermint Patty can mock you until you cry.

Send in the clown
Maybe our fear of clowns is founded after all. Carrie Williams-Thompson, aka Kooki the Clown, is the latest creepy jester to foil humanity. This professional clown is accused of stealing $500,000 from an elderly woman in Prescott, Ariz. Williams-Thompson befriended the woman after her husband died, and then used that friendship to manipulate the woman’s finances. After gaining power of attorney, Williams-Thompson decided to go on a shopping spree with the woman’s cash. Sources state that Williams-Thompson purchased such high-pricetag items as trailers, vehicles and houses. What the papers failed to report, however, were the items that alter-ego Kooki bought. We obtained financial receipts for a few of Kooki’s previously undisclosed purchases:
—The biggest tiny car on the market
—A pet-sitter for her balloon animals
—Vera Wang designed polka-dot Hammerpants
—A baker’s dozen of midgets
—A human-sized cage
—Shoes that fit
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